Following the recent decisions by the International Baseball Federation (IBAF) and International Softball Federation (ISF) to merge into a single federation, sale cialis the heads of these organisations has appointed Olympic bid specialists, clinic  Helios Partners to help drive their campaign for Olympic 2020 inclusion.

The Atlanta (USA)-based firm has a notable track record of helping manage winning Olympic bid campaigns.

Helios will provide critical support to the ISF & IBAF team on preparing the presentations to the IOC Olympic Programme Commission in December and the IOC Executive Board in May 2013, as well as the overall strategy for the campaign.

“We have achieved incredible progress on the merger in a very short period of time, and now we have to really move forward decidedly in other areas”, said Don Porter, ISF President “We needed a highly professional and experienced agency to support our efforts, and we could not think of better partner than Helios”.

“By combining into a single IF, we now need to bring our athletes and sports back to the forefront and focus on preparing our case for the exceptional value baseball and softball bring to the Olympic Movement.” said Riccardo Fraccari, IBAF President  “We have a great story to tell and Helios is the perfect partner to help us articulate that”.

“We are honoured to work alongside these two great sports, played and enjoyed by millions of men, women, boys and girls around the world, to help return them to the Olympic Programme as a single, unified and inclusive Federation,” said Terrence Burns, President of Helios Partners. “Together, baseball and softball will reinforce the Olympic ideals at sport’s grassroots level in hundreds of countries around the globe”.

A court in Karnataka has issued a stay order on the Indian Tennis Association (AITA) decision not to consider selecting doubles specialists Mahesh Bhupathi and Rohan Bopanna to play for India until 2014.

The order means AITA’s decision not to select the pair for the next two years is suspended pending further appeal.

The players took the AITA to court after it banned the two players from selection because they both refused to partner any other players at the Olympics.

Having qualified together as a pair, Bhupathi and Bopanna did not want to be separated for the tournament.

Although the duo was eventually selected as the second team for the Games, neither partnership won any medals in London.

AITA secretary, Bharat Oza, said in a statement the organisation had “decided not to consider Mahesh Bhupathi and Rohan Bopanna for selection to play for India until June 30, 2014”.

Oza said they would bring in a new code of conduct to avoid a repeat of the situation arising in the future.

“We’re going to lay down a new code of conduct in the next two to three months. Mahesh and Rohan refused to partner any other player in the Olympics.That clearly amounts to indiscipline and calls for action.”

The duo were dropped dropped for the recent Davis Cup tie with New Zealand.

Bhupathi criticised Anil Khanna, the AITA President, for the ban.

“Khanna has redefined the term divide and rule…the AITA and its dictatorial attitude, and its administration are harmful for the future of Indian tennis,” he said.

Bhupathi called on the AITA leadership to resign.

The decision to stay the ban is a step forward for the players. {jcomments on}

Prague will host the 2015 European Athletics Indoor Championships after the Czech capital was selected ahead of Istanbul.

 

European Athletics awarded the rights for the 33^rd edition of the event at their 132nd Council meeting held in today Sofia, Bulgaria.

 

The Czech Athletics Federation conducted their presentation to host the championships after Istanbul, the only other candidate city, had made their bid.

 

Hansjörg Wirz, President of the European Athletics Council said: “We are very pleased to confirm that Prague will be the hosts of the European Athletics Indoor Championships in 2015.”

 

Libor Varhanik, the Czech Athletics Federation’s President, said to the Council: “Thank you very much for putting your trust in us, and we welcome you all to Prague in 2015.”

In 1967 Prague hosted a forerunner of the European Athletics Indoor Championships before it staged the outdoor event in 1978.

 

The 2013 European Athletics Indoor Championships will be held in Gothenburg, Sweden between March 1-3.

Glasgow Rangers administrators are taking Ticketus to court to seek permission to breach the £24.4m deal for season ticket sales struck by the SPL team’s owner Craig Whyte.

Duff and Phelps have raised the action at the Court of Session in Edinburgh, which is scheduled to last two days, starting on Thursday morning.

The administrators believe are seeking legal permission to breach the deal for four years’ future season ticket sales. This action does not mean Duff and Phelps are questioning whether or not the agreement is legally binding, but the insolvency firm are seeking the court’s approval to not pay Ticketus the money earned from season ticket sales until 2015.

If the request for the breach is allowed, Ticketus would become creditors that the administrators would need to include in any company voluntary agreement needed to bring Rangers out of administration.

The consequences of the court move could also have ramifications for the Blue Knights takeover consortium. The company is backing the bid fronted by ex-Rangers director Paul Murray, but should it become a creditor rather than a stakeholder at Rangers, its involvement in the consortium may change.

Administrators Duff and Phelps previously stated the remainder of the Ticketus money had not touched the club’s accounts, while they have also said they were looking into the “validity” of Mr Whyte’s position as majority shareholder as he does not appear to have put any of his own funds into the club.

by Ismail Uddin

Alberto Contador’s conviction for doping and the resulting two-year suspension could end up costing him millions of Euros, between legal fees, penalties, the return of prize money and lost income.

In its decision announced on Monday, CAS said that it would rule separately on the UCI’s request to fine him “2,485,000 Euros ($3,275,446) in addition to the 70% of the variable part of his image contract.”

Contador is estimated to earn 5 million Euros ($6,592,299) a year under his Saxo Bank contract, and 70 percent of that would be 3,5 million Euros.

However, the court order also requires the “forfeiture of any medals, points and prizes” he won at the Tour de France 2010, Giro d’Italia 2011 and all other races after January 25, 2011.

It is not clear to whom  the fines would be paid, and what would be done with the money.  Nor it is known whether the prize money would be returned to race organisers and subsequently paid to the new winner, or whether the forfeiture would include bonuses paid by the team or sponsors.

He also faces the loss of his income until the ban expires in August.

The case itself has cost Contador a lot of money in legal fees alone.  He may have paid up to 2 million Euros ($2.63m) to his various lawyers already, Daniel Malbranque, former general secretary of the professional riders union, told Bloomberg.net.

“The money runs out very quickly in these cases,” he said. “He’s been paying lawyers non- stop for 18 months.”

In addition, Bloomberg reported that Contador lost at least one potential sponsor due to the doping case.  A deal with Hugo Boss AG to supply him with clothing for public appearances was cancelled when the positive doping control became public, Till Pohlmann, head of sports sponsorship for the luxury clothing company said.

The error-stricken London 2012 Olympic ticket re-sale website is set to reopen this week, according to organisers. 

It has already been down for a week since being unable to cope with the vast demand, since when under-pressure agents Ticketmaster have been trying to get it back up and running. 

However, a spokesman for the London 2012 Organising Committee (LOCOG) said on Friday the problems had been fixed and that the site should reopen this week. 

But the spokesman refused to specify an exact day when tickets will again go on sale or the nature of the technical solution. 

“LOCOG confirms that a solution has been found to enable the ticket resale platform to reopen next week.” 

The resale site was designed to allow fans to sell unwanted tickets, with others able to buy them on a first-come, first-served basis. 

But many would-be purchasers were left frustrated as their attempts to buy tickets failed, with the site — hours after they logged on — showed the same tickets were available yet unable to be bought. 

London 2012 said the confusion was down to thousands of people trying to buy tickets and the ensuing delay in removing those tickets from the system once they had in fact been purchased. 

The resale window had been due to be open until February 3, with a further one million ‘contingency’ tickets due to go on sale in May. 

Officials have yet to confirm if the resale window will be extended. 

Although ticket sales for the Games have been strong, the way in which tickets have been distributed has led to unwanted headlines for organisers. 

Earlier this month LOCOG suffered the embarrassment of admitting they had mistakenly oversold tickets for synchronised swimming sessions and were forced to offer people places at other events. 

Last year hundreds of thousands of British fans missed out on tickets for the Games in a lottery, amid massive demand.

The Indian division of the world’s leading online marketplace, eBay has partnered with the leading apparel brands adidas, Reebok, Puma & Lotto Sports to provide a one stop shop for the official Indian Premier League (IPL) merchandise from all 10 IPL teams. 

While eBay India has secured partnerships with brands like adidas, Reebok and Puma in the past, this is the first time that the website has tied up with Lotto Sports. Fan gear is also available from Genesis, Cool Maal, Reliance Trends, Reliance Leisure and Sports & Beyond. 

eBay is offering a wide range of merchandise that include T-shirts, jerseys, caps, footwear, collectibles & fan gear, mugs, wrist bands, key chains & miniature bats. 

eBay India has also partnered with many of its charity partners to auction one unique autographed memorabilia every week during the IPL season. This week, a bat autographed by Rahul Dravid is on auction at Re 1 with the proceeds benefiting Children’s Movement for Civic Awareness. (CMCA). The auction ends on April 21, 2011.

Major League Baseball (MLB) side the New York Mets have released a statement confirming that in November, the league made a US$25m short-term loan to the clubs owners “in order to shore up the team’s liquidity.”

Reports suggest that the loan is “expected to be repaid within months.”

The Mets said in a statement: “We said in October that we expected to have a short-term liquidity issue. To address this, we did receive a loan from Major League Baseball in November”

Sources have also predicted that the Mets owners are now willing to sell up to a 49 per cent stake in the franchise, almost double the 25 per cent share that the owners had previously indicated that they would be willing to relieve.

The America’s Cup has been forced to slash it’s entry fees by almost three-quarters due to a lack of entries for the next event in 2013.

The flagship sailing event has seen just 5 teams commit to an interest in competing including defending champions BMW Oracle and challengers of record Mascalzone Latino. Worries are mounting ahead of the event due to kick off next June with a series of preliminary regattas in smaller versions of the official America’s Cup 72ft wing-masted catamarans.

The entry fee and performances amount was set to total at £2.6m (US$4m) but has been drastically reduced to £710,000 ($1.1m) following discussions between existing and potential competitors and the event organisers, America’s Cup Racing Management.

A further five months have also been allowed to make those payments in recognition of the difficult economic climate which is said to be preventing campaigns from raising the necessary sponsorships funds, said to be at least £15m ($23m) a year.

“These changes are designed to allow the teams to put their initial investments into building their teams and boats,” said Iain Murray, regatta director for the 34th America’s Cup and head of ACRM.